1Mby1M Incubation Radar 2013: enMarkit, Singapore

enMarkit is a social engagement and business intelligence platform that enables businesses to gain insights about their customers and develop personalized experiences. Using enMarkit, online businesses can identify their influential referrers, their customers’ lifetime values and buying interests, and conduct targeted loyalty and marketing campaigns online. Within just two months of its transition from a B2C to a B2B model, enMarkit has an expected revenue run rate of $50,000.

enMarkit was founded in 2012 by Vipin Aggarwal and Ekta Mittal. Before starting enMarkit, Vipin, a chemical engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and management graduate from IIM Ahmedabad, was a venture capital investor at Nexus Ventures and Kotak Private Equity in India. Ekta, a computer science graduate from BITS Pilani, led Amazon’s global stores’ multi-channel products development in India.

The idea for enMarkeit emerged from the founders’ reading of the slow uptake of e-commerce in emerging economies. They believed that in addition to concerns around online payment fraud, people also did not trust e-commerce providers. They believed that the customer reviews on these sites and feedback on social networking environments were generally sponsored or purchased.

They would rather rely on recommendations from friends and family before completing a transaction. enMarkit was created to bridge this trust gap by offering familiarity on websites. It helps websites greet their shoppers with familiar faces. Shoppers are able to read verified reviews from their respective friends. This helps in multiplying confidence significantly and increase the conversion rate for websites.

enMarkit backs up its social customer engagement solution with robust business analytics. Unlike traditional analytics firms that expect the raw data of customer logins and their purchases to be stored and provided by website owners, enMarkit creates the engagement tools that incentivize end users to spend time on the website and to share their personal information.

enMarkit gained initial traction through email marketing and cold calls to businesses in India and Singapore. Vipin also met traditional businesses, website owners and retail shoppers to understand their requirements, expectations while shopping online, and shopping preferences. Over time, enMarkit has incorporated these insights in its online marketing campaigns and product specifications.

enMarkit charges a monthly subscription fee that depends on the volume of data generated and managed. Plans start at $50/month and go up to $1,000/month for larger businesses. For large enterprise customers, enMarkit creates custom quotes depending on their volumes.

The top target market for enMarkit is online B2C businesses that need to build trust and personalization in their services online. Its initial focus is the e-commerce industry players in South and Southeast Asia. In the Asian region, the number of B2C websites is more than 100,000. With an average billing of just $200/month to a website, the opportunity is $240 million per annum.

The company was initially bootstrapped. The enMarkit FAST payment platform and ONE social commerce engines gave it sufficient revenues to manage a small team. In September 2013, it joined JFDI Asia’s seed incubation program for gaining access and visibility in the Southeast Asian region. They invested $15,000 in the business. It helped the company add highly experienced advisors from global firms including Skype, Facebook, and global investment firms to its team. It is looking to add a few more such key advisors cum investors.

Vipin says the ideal investor would be someone who understands and has worked in the business analytics domain and is willing to spend time guiding them in their product strategy.

This segment is a part in the series : 1Mby1M Incubation Radar 2013